Hostages Under Death Threat in Peru Standoff

Guerrillas holding as many as 490 hostages in the Japanese ambassador’s residence here threatened Wednesday to kill their elite captives--who included Peruvian Cabinet ministers and diplomats from two dozen countries--unless Peru released hundreds of their imprisoned comrades.

As the extraordinary hostage standoff caused worldwide consternation and reached the 24-hour mark, the gunmen from the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, or MRTA, oscillated between threats to kill the hostages and promises to release them in exchange for medicine and other concessions.

In hopeful moves late Wednesday afternoon, the guerrillas released four diplomats designated as a negotiating team. Fellow envoys identified the liberated hostages as the Canadian, Greek and German ambassadors and the French cultural attache to Peru.

Still dressed in evening clothes from the previous night’s party in honor of Japanese Emperor Akihito’s birthday, which the guerrillas raided, the diplomats walked out of the compound and were helped by police into a car that took them to the presidential palace. They were expected to meet with President Alberto Fujimori to discuss the crisis.

Before speeding off, the diplomats read a brief statement to a clamoring crowd of journalists, saying: “We have been liberated . . . to serve as a bridge to the government and search for a negotiated solution without bloodshed.”

Later Wednesday night, the diplomats returned to the scene of the siege under heavy police escort and appeared to be preparing to reestablish contact with the gunmen.

By then the gunmen set free a Peruvian diplomat and four other hostages. The movement of Red Cross workers and journalists back and forth into the grounds intensified as the guerrillas permitted medical teams to bring in supplies and tend to ailing and injured captives. The earlier tension appeared to have dissipated, but it was not clear if the increased activity heralded a breakthrough or merely both sides settling into the rhythm of a siege.

Squads of police and soldiers maintained discreet positions around the walled mansion in the wealthy enclave of San Isidro, having dropped back after the Tupac Amaru guerrillas set off a stick of dynamite at 9 a.m. as a warning for officers to keep their distance.

Fujimori has built his reputation as the conqueror of Peru’s terrorist menace, and officials of his government said little about where talks to end the siege stood.

The most visible negotiators earlier in the day were Red Cross officials and journalists, through whom the guerrillas demanded that Fujimori release imprisoned Tupac Amaru members into the jungle of the Upper Huallaga Valley, a hotbed of terrorism.

During one of several phone calls to radio and television programs, a guerrilla leader asked to talk to the president face to face. “Everything’s fine, there’s no problem here,” said the gunman, who identified himself as Commander Tito. “The only thing we want is to talk to Fujimori.”

Later, the Tupac Amaru gunmen--estimated at 30 strong--expanded on their demands, calling for safe passage from the ambassador’s residence to the jungle valley, a change in the government’s free-market economic policy and payment of a “war tax” by the government.

Fujimori, who governs with a small and secretive circle of advisors, assigned Domingo Palermo, his education minister, to lead the negotiations. Some observers questioned the choice of Palermo instead of Peru’s human rights ombudsman, whom the guerrillas specifically requested.

Letter From Hostages

The hostages, meanwhile, sent their own faxed communique from the residence Wednesday emphasizing the precariousness of the situation. “The guerrillas of the MRTA are determined,” the hostages said in the letter. “The situation is getting increasingly tense because of the lack of dialogue and the overcrowding.”

The letter was signed by Peru’s foreign minister, the president of the Supreme Court and a veritable Who’s Who of Lima’s Latin American, Asian and European diplomats. At least 25 nations and prominent Peruvian political figures are represented among the captives, as well as executives, doctors and leaders of the Japanese community here.

The U.S. Embassy and State Department officials declined to confirm or deny that American citizens were among the hostages, but the hostages’ letter shown on television made reference to a political counselor of the U.S. Embassy in Lima.

U.S. Ambassador Dennis Jett, who left the party shortly before the terrorists stormed in, has been in constant contact with the Peruvian government since the incident began, State Department officials said.

The U.S. Embassy in Lima was trying to contact all Americans known to be in Peru to warn them of the situation, authorities said.

State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said U.S. government policy is to not confirm the presence of Americans in hostage situations at least until it is obvious that the terrorists know who they’ve got.

Concern About Leaks

Indeed, U.S. officials remained deeply concerned over the possibility of unauthorized information filtering out.

Reports that State Department employees unofficially had said Americans were being held hostage prompted one senior Clinton administration official to declare in frustration: “If they have done that, they are klutzes and they are idiots.”

Burns also told reporters that the U.S. government has offered to provide assistance if the Peruvian government requests it; there were no such requests as of late Wednesday.

The United States will not negotiate with hostage-takers and will not offer them any sort of “reward,” Burns said. He said the U.S. government does not encourage others to talk to terrorists either, though he added, “It is obviously prudent for the Peruvian government to have some contacts with the terrorists.”

In Lima, earlier in the day, a guerrilla leader had threatened to shoot Peruvian Foreign Minister Francisco Tudela if negotiations did not begin by noon. That deadline, though, came and went without incident.

The standoff spurred a number of governments to dispatch high-ranking diplomats and crisis managers to Lima and issue statements urging Peru to preserve the safety of the hostages. A delegation of diplomats met at the residence of the papal nuncio Wednesday afternoon to formulate a plan to discuss the matter with the Fujimori administration, according to a U.S. Embassy spokesman.

All the international attention adds up to a nightmare for Peru, which portrays itself as a nation that has overcome years of bloody civil war.

But in a single stroke, the terrorists have shoved aside claims of investment opportunities and political stability, again identifying Peru with crippling rebel violence.

Fujimori’s popularity had already begun to slide because of a stalled economic recovery and tensions with a restive military over the intimidating arrest by intelligence agents of a retired general who criticized human rights abuses. Now Fujimori’s self-proclaimed mastery of anti-terrorist warfare has been called into question.

“The intelligence service has failed,” said political analyst Andres Belaunde. “They dedicate themselves to arresting the general instead of detecting terrorist plots like this one.”

Like other observers, Belaunde said Fujimori is in a difficult spot because using force against the terrorists would risk the lives of international allies being held on Japanese soil. He recalled that the takeover a few years ago of the embassy of the Dominican Republic in Bogota, Colombia, lasted for 60 days before leftist guerrillas agreed to surrender.

Targeting Japan

Tupac Amaru is the smaller, more traditional and more sophisticated of Peru’s two guerrilla groups.

Although it has been involved in dramatic prison escapes and bombings, it had been considered almost dormant since a violent incident a year ago in which police captured its leaders after a gunfight and hostage standoff.

On Monday, the day before the assault on the ambassador’s residence, the hundreds of Tupac Amaru members held in Peruvian prisons announced that they were going on a hunger strike to protest harsh conditions.

In recent weeks, the government had pressed a crackdown on the larger and more brutal Shining Path rebel movement, capturing important rebel commanders.

According to Japanese news reports, the total number of Japanese hostages is 120, including 15 Japanese embassy employees and the ambassador, Morihisa Aoki.

Aoki has told the Japanese that he begged the guerrillas to release the captured guests and keep him as the sole hostage, but was refused.

The hostage crisis has riveted Japan, with television stations showing live footage each hour of the overnight vigils being held at some of the 18 Japanese companies and organizations whose staff members are being held captive.

As Foreign Minister Yukihiko Ikeda left early today for Lima, Japan’s Imperial Household Agency announced today that the emperor’s 63rd birthday party scheduled for Monday will be canceled in the wake of the terrorist attack.

The hostage crisis is already prompting Japan to review its foreign aid policies, which have been much criticized in the past as “checkbook diplomacy” that has helped Japanese corporations more than the recipient countries.

The Japanese ambassador’s residence was targeted because “the Japanese government is supporting Fujimori and the Fujimori administration is ignoring the plight of 30 million hungry Peruvians,” a guerrilla told Japan’s NHK news.

Times staff writers Sonni Efron in Tokyo and Norman Kempster and Jonathan Peterson in Washington contributed to this report.

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Assault in Lima

The hostage situation began Tuesday when guerrillas of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement disguised as waiters entered the residence of the Japanese ambassador to Peru. Inside, guests were celebrating the birthday of Japanese Emperor Akihito.

1) Four explosions occur in the interior of the residence about 8:15 p.m.

2) The hostages are led to a tent in the garden and forced to lie face down.

3) Shooting between police and rebels lasts half an hour.

4) Captors lead the hostages into the main building.

5) Some hostages are released at 9:45 p.m.

Source: El Comercio newspaper